End Of The World Party
by kepulver
Summary: G1 takes place approximately 11 million years prior to the G1 series, shortly after the events in Forever is a Long Time Coming Kup goes to a party and has a really wild time.  Mild het.


**End-Of-The-World Party**

They were leaving tomorrow, right after the start of First Shift. The scoop ships were ready, all two dozen of them. Their navicomps had been programmed with star charts and astronavigation routes from Central Processing. As Kup watched, the last of the supplies were being loaded.

This was it; they were ready. He was ready -- or so he told himself. Like the others on his ship, he'd completed crash course after crash course in the proper running and maintenance of scoop ships. He could chart a course, run a reactor, man the guns -- whatever was needed. Redundancy had been built into this mission as a safeguard against accidents and misfortune. But, all that was a precaution; nobody expected there to be any real trouble. They would go and come back again, easy as sipping energon.

And if he kept repeating that, maybe he could get his hands to stop shaking at the thought of leaving Cybertron.

Intellectually, he knew he was being stupid, even selfish. He was part of a noble mission, after all. They were going out to find the ones who'd been sold away by the Quints. They would find them, free them and -- if they chose -- bring them home.

They knew the locations of the main galactic slave markets as well as those planets who were the larger direct importers of Cybertronian goods. They had money from the vaults to buy their fellows back -- and the weapons to take them back if necessary. One of the few things Consumer Goods and Military Hardware could agree on was that no Cybertronian would ever be another beings property again. 

_If we could just do it without actually having to_ leave, Kup thought. _That would make it perfect._

"Hey! Kup! KUP!" Lifter's voice echoed inside the hangar. "Quit skiving off and c'mon! Party's starting without us!"

Kup turned away from the ships, grinning as he started to jog toward his friend. "No way! The party doesn't start until _we_ get there!"

Lifter's laugh boomed out of him, almost covering the hiss of hydraulics as he lowered himself back to his normal height. "Got that right! Still, we gotta get a move on; give the stay-heres something to talk about while we're gone."

"A reason to miss us?" Kup clapped Lifter on the back. "Or a reason to be glad we're gone?"

Lifter grinned. "Both!"

Laughing, they linked arms and headed out of the hanger, following the sounds of music and raised voices toward what had been the Main Showroom before the Emancipation. Now, with the corrals and pens torn out and the walls knocked down, it was simply a large open space. At least, normally it was a large open space. Currently, it was packed with thousands of robots and more still crowding in.

"Slag me!" Kup said. "The whole planet's here!"

"Just about," Lifter yelled back. "It's a historic occasion, what d'you expect? C'mon! Catch and Mettle said they'd meet us by the high grade pumps."

"Right, and how are we supposed to get through this crowd?" Kup asked. "Fly?"

"Kup, have you forgotten who we are?" Lifter put a heavy hand on Kup's shoulder. "We are proud astronauts! Heroes of our people! The ones braving the cold depths of space to bring our kit and kin home to freedom!"

"So, they're going to let us through because they're grateful?"

"No, 'cause we'll kick their fool heads in if they don't get out of our way!" Lifter said, pushing forward. "'Scuse me! Comin' through! Move it!"

Between them, they pushed and shoved, poked and prodded their way toward the high grade pumps, where a dozen mechs and femmes were filling and dispensing cube after cube after cube. 

"Kup! Lifter!" Mettle held a cube over her head. "Get over here!"

"We're trying!" Lifter pushed between a pair of Consumer Goods who were waiting for their cubes. Kup followed, grinning apologetically at them. In the spirit of the day, they grinned back at him and Kup found himself wishing that feeling would last forever.

It wouldn't, he knew that much. Ever since the Emancipation, the rift between Consumer Goods and Military Hardware was growing. Without the common enemy of the Quints, the two groups were slowly starting to turn on each other. There were those who said war would be coming soon and, much as he hated to, Kup had to agree.

"Kup!" Catch hugged him around the waist, derailing his train of thought. "You made it! I'm so glad!"

"No way we'd miss this," Kup said, patting Catch's shoulder. "Did you get your assignment yet?"

"Me and Mettle, we're on the _Return_." Catch looked over at Mettle, a heavily-built brick-class piece of Military Hardware. "Mettle swapped with a friend of hers so we could be together."

Mettle nodded, handing her cube to Catch and pulling him possessively close. "I'm security; did a straight swap with Target, since he wanted to be on the _Homecoming_ with a couple of his design mates." She stroked Catch's head lovingly. "Catch'll be our navigator. How about you two?"

"The _Independent_," Kup said. "I'm listed as maintenance, but they've got me marked as redundant on a couple different assignments. Lifter?"

Lifter's hydraulics hissed as he raised himself up, just enough to be taller than they all were. "The _Shattered Chain_, herself. Flagship of the whole blessed fleet. I'll be in the medbay."

Lifter's voice had carried enough that others in the crowd around them started congratulating him - and then all of them. Cube after cube was passed to them and toast after toast given to the "brave astronauts" and before Kup knew it, he was tipsy enough that he didn't care that he was dancing in public.

Of course, it helped that he was dancing with an attractive piece of Military Hardware. She was tall, taller than he was and of an entirely different design group than the blocky Mettle. She was one of the femmes who'd been built as decorative but still fully functional warriors. She was a high-ticket, custom job and here she was, dancing with a deep discount kitbash like him.

"What a world!" Kup said into his radio, hoping his voice would carry better over the sounds of the crowd.

"You don't have to yell." She smiled, looking amused. "The radio compensates for the background sounds."

Kup grinned sheepishly. "Sorry," he said. "Still not used to an internal radio; during the war, I had to make do with an external model."

She nodded, wincing sympathetically. "Those damned things cost us more troops than I'd like to think about. We'd have been better off having our people yell their plans back and forth."

Kup laughed, spinning on his heel as he danced. "Too true!" he said. :I'm Kup; I was with the Sixth-Level Saboteurs, under Conductor; how about you?"

It was one of the standard questions, right up there with "Where were you on E-Day?" Kup found himself hoping she'd be impressed -- or at least that she'd have heard of his group. Conductor hadn't been A-3, but he'd been a good leader who'd balanced protecting his people and deviling the Quints.

"I've heard of him." Her smile reached her optics, lighting up her face. For a moment, Kup could only stare at her beauty. "He was a brave and clever soldier."

"He was." Kup gave her points for not adding 'for Consumer Goods' the way many Hardwares would have. "I wish he'd lived to see this."

The femme moved in closer, reaching out to slide one arm around his waist while the fingers of her free hand brushed over the thinner armor on his lips. "There are many I wish were still with us," she said. "Some, perhaps, we'll be able to bring home. There, there's those who say we'll all be one again some day. Maybe there's some truth to that."

"I hope so," Kup said, reaching for her in turn. "If it's all a load of Quint lies, then I don' know. I don't think I even want to think about that."

"Shhh." She leaned down, kissing his forehead, then his nasal ridge, then his lips. "Doesn't matter what the Quints said; we're free now and what matters is what we do from here on out."

She pulled him in, holding him almost painfully tight. He returned her grip, matching her strength for strength. As they stood together, the celebration went on around them. Music and talk washed over them and Kup noticed briefly that they weren't the only couple. Here and there, others were drawn together in displays of affection that would have gotten them smelted only a few short vorn before.

"What's your name?" he asked again, glad for the radio that allowed him to talk and not break their kiss. "Tell me? Please?"

"Later," she said, her voice carrying a hint of command as she maneuvered him back against one of the high grade pumps. She pinned him easily enough -- not that he was about to fight her off now -- and pulled back long enough to dazzle him again with one of her smiles. "Right now, let's not complicate things."

If he'd been less intoxicated, he might have wondered what she meant. If her hands had been less skilled at teasing sensations out of him in ways he'd never dreamed of, he might have argued with her. If he'd had any thought other than feeling her and being felt in return -- well, who knew? 

But he was pretty sure he wouldn't have woken up some unknown time later, sprawled across a recharger aboard the _Independent_, while a green and tan mech stared curiously down at him.

"Hey, it's Kup, right?" the mech said. "Welcome aboard, I'm Freight."

"Thanks," Kup said, shifting so that he could try and sit up, despite his self-repair unit's worried bleating.

"Welcome," Freight said. "Well, maybe not: Export wants to see you on the bridge, ASAP."

"Why?" Kup reluctantly unplugged himself from the recharger.

"Dunno for sure, but it's probably because he wants to know why you were dropped off a dekabreem ago by Beta herself."

"_What_?" Kup's shout set his self-repair unit to whimpering at him again, plaintively trying to get him to plug back in. "Beta? _The_ Beta? The one who lead the revolt against the Quints? You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah." Freight grinned. 'It was _a_ Beta; they come in job lots now. 'Course it was _the_ Beta! She showed up here, half-carrying you and handed you over to the purser. Told her to make sure you were sober and refreshed by launch 'cause you had had a busy night. Then she headed off; Export's figuring you for some kinda political or something, but he's always been a little paranoid where the Hardwares are concerned."

"I'm Consumer Goods," Kup said, stupidly. "Well, at least by design. I was just--I mean, wait, I just met her last night! At the celebration. I didn't even know who she was until now!"

Freight whistled. "Now that's a send-off," he said with an admiring nod. "You're one lucky sack of scrap, you are. Well, at least until you go see Export. He's about to throw a rod over this; you better haul it double-time to the bridge."

"Great, just the way I wanted to start this trip." Kup hauled himself out of the recharger and started moving as fast as his aching servos would let him.

"Just tell him what happened!" Freight called helpfully after him. "And don't leave out any details! It's gonna be a long trip and we gotta have some kinda entertainment!" 


End file.
